My interest in photography goes back to my early childhood. My parents owned a print shop in Brooklyn, New York, and the day after I was born, my mother placed me in a baby carrier on her desk so she could finish the payroll. It was my mother's photographs of the Old Jewish Cemetery in Prague, Czechoslovakia that gave her the opportunity to come to this country on a scholarship to the University of Pennsylvania. I took my first photography classes in high school and continued up through college, where I spent an entire year hiking through the Catskill and Shawangunk mountains of Upstate New York. There I documented much of the natural beauty of the Hudson River Valley. I studied at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia and the State University of New York at New Paltz, where I earned a B.A. in Political Science. Since my graduation in 2003, I have traveled to many of our nation's national parks, lived on the Central Coast of California, and served a tour in Afghanistan with the United States Navy, all of which have had a profound impact on how I see the world around us. I hope, through my photographs, I will be able to share this appreciation with you.